Afterwords
by hoydenish
Summary: Lee and Amanda have sex, talk about having sex, then have sex again. Lather, rinse, repeat. No spoilers, no suggested season, no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Consequently, I may make a series out of it. Adult content warning. I wrote it, and it still makes me blush.
1. Chapter 1

Afterwords

He slowly lowered himself to the mattress beside her, the tension in his muscles unspooling in a pleasant but lesser copy of its arrival. Still breathing in bursts, he rolled to his back, using the arm that had been wrapped behind her shoulder to pull her against his side. He could feel the twitching in her body, still echoing along her skin where they were pressed together. Time slowed. His pulse leveled out. The world faded from vermillion red to a soft, muted yellow.

He turned to find her watching him, her eyes huge with something akin to apprehension.

"Hey" he spoke softly.

"Lee, I …" she sounded unsure of her voice, and let whatever she was going to say trail off, dropping her gaze and rubbing her cheek against his clavicle.

Oh, so that was it. She was shy. How very like Amanda, to be fearless in the moment, but nervous afterwards. He wanted to grin, but knew it would only make matters worse. His fingers made lazy trips down her spine.

"Wanna talk about what's bothering you all of a sudden? No regrets, I hope."

"No! No. I could never regret loving you, Lee. And I've wanted this for so long …"

He let out a long breath, releasing any momentary doubts that had crept in behind the shadow of her uncustomary silence.

"So, was it worth the wait?" he asked, eyes dancing, confident in her answer. It wasn't arrogance that made him so, at least not entirely. He simply knew enough to know when he'd pleasured his partner, and Amanda had been ardently, toe-curlingly well pleased. Several times, by his count. Just thinking about it made his groin tighten perceptibly, but he had other matters to attend to.

"Oh, Lee. Yes. For me it was …" He could hear the unspoken question in her reply.

"But you're not sure if I feel the same way. Oh, Amanda. Of course it was. How could you ever doubt that? I've wanted to be with you, imagined being with you for as long as I can remember. And the reality … well …. you know I don't have your gift for words …"

"Maybe that's part of it. I guess I couldn't really tell if you were, you know, enjoying yourself. I mean, other than the obvious part." She was blushing now, and he could see the colour creeping down her chest, distracting him before he forced his attention back to what she had said.

"We can't all be as vocal as you, Amanda." he teased, grinning as her chest flushed an even deeper red.

"You didn't seem to mind at the time." she reminded him, trying to regain her composure.

"No. No, I most certainly did not mind. Feel free to deify me anytime the mood strikes." She slapped weakly at his chest, noticing that his breath was quickening as they verbally relived their recent intercourse.

"But you were sort of, I dunno, reserved. Not in what you did, but in how you reacted to me. I never expected that. I guess I always imagined you'd be more … expressive."

"Always imagined, huh? We're going to have to have a long chat about all these things we've imagined about each other. As for being expressive, I never really thought about it before. Maybe it comes from so many years keeping my feelings to myself, not just about you, but about everything. I don't have a lot of practice laying my emotions out for anyone to see."

"I know. I know that, Lee. But this is me. You know I'd never hurt you. I keep all your secrets safe in my heart."

He pulled her towards him then, tangling his fingers in her hair and kissing her slow and deep. He knew she was right. He had nothing to fear with her, and nothing left to hide now either. Maybe it was time to let his body know what his mind had understood for years. That she was the only safe harbour he would ever need to find.

Still kissing him, she pushed herself over his long body, knees coming to rest against his flanks, hands on his shoulders. Her mouth pulled back from his, sucking first on his tongue, then feasting on his indecently lush bottom lip. She felt his strong fingers massaging her hips, tipping her pelvis so she made solid contact with his growing erection. She was sticky from their recent sex, and growing wetter by the moment. Without realizing it, she began to rock against him, letting out a breathy moan.

"Yesssss" he whispered, and she leaned back to watch him as their bodies moved together. His eyes were shut and his lips were parted and she thought she had never seen anything more beautiful until his eyelids fluttered open and she looked into his loden eyes. He lifted a hand to caress her cheek.

"You're so beautiful. So beautiful, Amanda." and she turned to kiss his palm. His thumb outlined her swollen lips, and she worried it between her teeth before sucking it slowly into her mouth. His hips rolled beneath her, making them both gasp.

He removed his thumb, dragging it against her lip, over her jawbone, down her elegant neck, into the depression at the base of her throat, and finally to the edge of her areola, circling the dampness from her mouth around and around her darkened skin, maddeningly close to where she wanted it. He watched in satisfaction as her nipples hardened, first the one he was tormenting, then the other. His mouth flooded with moisture in response.

Pushing himself to seated with his free arm, both hands slid behind her back, cupping her delicate shoulder blades like twin chalices and arching her towards his waiting mouth. Fingers tunneled through his hair. Her rapid breathing took on sound, a high pitched descant of pleasure as he sucked the rigid tip of each breast in turn between his teeth, cheeks hollowing with the pressure. He could hardly believe how turned on he was, and broke contact with her flesh long enough to tell her so.

"I need you. Inside me. Now." each phrase punctuated by a pulse of her body against his.

"Lift up for a second." he instructed gruffly, pulling her weight upwards long enough to pivot his feet beneath him until he was kneeling as though to pray. Holding his length in one hand, he encouraged her hips downward until he could rub his glans against her folds as she groaned near his ear, the sensation so intense that he ground his teeth and his whole body shook with restraint.

She released her shaking quads and dropped slowly onto him, a long slick ache that she wished would never end. As he bottomed out inside her, their eyes met in mutual awe.

"Sweet Christ. Don't move, Amanda. Just let me … God. So good."

She recognized his struggle for control, and stilled in his lap. She could swear she could feel the beating of his heart against her inner walls. Her muscles contracted around him, and his groan had a tortured quality that filled her with pride.

Regaining some measure of control, he used his hands to manoeuvre her body in slow waves. Freed of responsibility for anything other than their mutual pleasure, she cradled his face in her hands and bent to rub the bridge of her nose along his forehead, his eyebrows, the shell of his ear, feeling the humid wash of his breath on the sensitive skin of her neck. Her nipples rubbed against his chest and she grasped the ropy muscles of his shoulders, finally starting to lift and lower herself more forcefully than his hands allowed, needing the sharp bolts of pleasure that skittered over her as she rubbed along his skin.

"Mmm, Manda, slow down. That feels so good, but I don't want to come yet."

If anything, his words only incited her to move faster, needing to make him let go of any restraint. He tried one last time to still her movements with his hands, but she shook her head and tightened around him until all thought of protest vanished from his mind, replaced by the encroaching frenzy for completion. Reaching between their bodies, he found her clit and manipulated it roughly in circles, feeling her muscles seize tight and then spasm and she cried out her pleasure against his neck, hands clasping and then slipping on his sweaty skin.

Finesse completely abandoned, he toppled them forward until she was on her back with her head at the foot of the mattress, her quivering thighs still high on his hips as he stretched out over her. There was nothing but the collision of their bodies, the hungry damp glide of their sex. A red haze of lust, silver needles of passion and a billowing white cloud of nothingness. Release started as the eerie calm before the cataclysm, awareness re-establishing at the point where they were joined and then rippling outwards like a thunderclap until every sinew shook with it. He let go of everything, then, trusting her to guide him back to safety.

"Loveyouloveyouloveyouloveyouloveyou."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The roar of blood in his ears had only started to diminish when his heart dropped into his gut. She held him like a warm envelope, and her eyes were closed, a blissful smile playing over her lips.

"Amanda?" he ventured.

"Mmmm hmmmm." her reply, too lazy to form words.

"Are you okay?"

"Very okay, thank you." she teased.

"You sure? I mean, do you want me to … that is, I'm pretty sure you didn't …" It wasn't like him to be tongue-tied in bed, but they were still new, and he wasn't certain how to blend their friendship and intimacy in a way that sacrificed neither.

Her eyes opened then, and they were bottomless and warm and replete, and he stomach muscles relaxed a degree, causing him to slip from her body. She released a little sigh.

"Lee … that was amazing … you're amazing. But no, I didn't." she confessed, knowing it was going to hurt his feelings, but not willing to lie to him all the same.

"Well then let me …" and he rolled to his right shoulder, skidding his hand down her belly before she caught it in a firm grip, tugging it back up and brushing her lips back and forth across his knuckles as she shook her head slowly.

The puff of air he released spoke of confusion and the onset of wounded pride. She was going to have to do some quick talking.

"Lee, you know that expression, it's not the destination, it's the journey?" she opened.

"Yeah." he muttered warily.

"It applies here. And it has nothing to do with what you did, or didn't do. Or what I wanted, or didn't want. It's just … some days, it's not going to happen. But that doesn't mean I didn't enjoy the ride." she grinned.

"That's not acceptable to me, Amanda. I might as well have been using you for sex then, just to get off. That's not what I want for us." What they both knew, and what he certainly wasn't about to say, was that made her different from the majority of his sexual partners. But even then, he'd never left a woman hanging. At least, he thought he hadn't …. Great, now not only was he doubting his current prowess, but his past performance as well. What started out as a pleasant detour from a goodnight kiss in Amanda's car to his bedroom was fast turning into a nightmare.

She drew a calming breath, trying not to become frustrated with his one dimensional view of intimacy. The fact that the man beside her, handsome and intelligent and charming in most every way, had managed to reach his mid-thirties without understanding the whimsy of the female orgasm said a lot about the nature of his past relationships. She was going to have to set him straight. Delicately.

"So, let me guess … this has never happened with you before? All those women in your black books? Fireworks? Every single time?"

He wore a strangled, horrified look, and she hurried to clarify that she wasn't expecting details.

"Relax, Lee. It's a rhetorical question. Because I already know the answer. Some of those women …" here she lowered her voice to a whisper, leaning towards him, "were faking it."

"Amanda …" he protested, scrubbing his face bashfully.

"Lee, it's not a reflection on you. It's just a statistical fact. Not even your luck is that good." she tried to tease him into seeing some humour in her upsetting revelation.

"So you're saying, what? That I should resign myself to not satisfying you in bed? As I said earlier, that's not acceptable."

"Not at all. You'll recall this wasn't an issue last time. Or the time before that. Quite the opposite, in fact." she blushed a bit, remembering. "But there are going to be times when I'm distracted by something that happened at work, or I think I need a shower, or I'm still recovering from the last time you made me see stars …" She must have finally said something right, because the brooding look he'd been wearing since their conversation started slowly morphed into an adolescent grin.

"Stars?"

"Mmm hmmm. Stars. Constellations. Galaxies, even." she ran her index finger along the bridge of his nose in a gesture she knew he found calming, and the tension he'd been carrying in his shoulders started to evaporate. He curled his body around her like a comma, head pressed to her neck and his long legs folded underneath hers, knees pressed to the backs of her thighs. They breathed in unison for a long time, the faint hum of his furnace the only other sound in the room. He let himself consider their conversation, and understood that on some level he'd always suspected what she was saying. It was simply that no-one had ever had the courage to tell him the truth before. How very like Amanda, to exchange a beautiful lie with an awkward fact, and make him feel like he'd come out the winner in the bargain.

"What was it today?" he finally asked.

"Hmmmm?"

"What was it today? Work? Shower? Certainly not the galaxies. That was last week." She chuckled, as he'd hoped she would.

"Oh, that's easy. You asked me to drop you off at home. You didn't mention you were planning on inviting me in. So I had already resigned myself to going home alone."

"Really? And you couldn't un-resign yourself?" he asked, genuinely curious now.

"Obviously, yes. Just not enough."

"Huh. I guess I get it. Men are such binary creatures when it comes to sex."

"And for women it's more like a colour wheel. But it's not all bad. It let me concentrate on you. And Lee?" she lowered her voice conspiratorially.

"Yeah?"

"Watching you was … well, it was really … hot."

"Yeah?" his voice grew husky, as her legs began to shift, brushing against the hair on his thighs.

"Yeah. And you know what else?"

He did. Could see it in the flush on her skin, feel it in the seeking movement of her limbs against his, smell it over the tang of their previous union. His left hand clasped her right, and he drew them both down her body, stopping at the crease where her thigh met her pelvis.

"Show me." he urged, so close that the moisture from his breath warmed and then chilled her ear. Oh, he was going to be the death of her, asking for things she didn't know how to offer in the same low, insistent tone of voice he'd used to enlist her help on countless occasions. And just like then, she was not proof against his requests.

She drew his hand towards her sex where their words and her memories of his abandon had made her swollen and damp. She lay her hand atop his larger one, and pressed down. Unprepared for the surge of sensation, she gasped as she pulled away. Like a marionette, he likewise retreated, and she understood he was insisting on her total guidance. Slowly, she explored the sensation of touching herself through his body, growing confident as her urgency built along with their precision. His legs remained curled beneath her, lifting her limbs. He used his feet to spread her ankles further apart, making more room for their twinned hands to move in and out and against her body. Soon, she was beyond herself, and it was only the weight of his arm along her torso that held her to the mattress, tethering her when it felt as though she might fly away. Her hand abandoned his then, grabbing fistfuls of his sheets and his quick-learning fingers finished their common goal, measuring his success in her rhythmic pulses and breathless cries. Finally confident that she was through, he lay his hand gently over her and watched her eyelids flutter open.

"So, where did that fall, on this colour wheel of yours?" he asked with a pleased smile.

''Rainbows, Lee. Rainbows and stars."


	3. Chapter 3

Chapter 3

Sensation trickled slowly back to the parts of her that weren't in contact with his body. The comforter, bunched awkwardly underneath her ribs. Her hair snagging wildly on the rough cotton of the hotel pillowcase. Her socks, still warming her feet where they bracketed his calves. They hadn't found time to take off her socks in the urgency of being together.

Lee's arms were still banded about her waist, and he was nuzzling the back of her neck when he remarked, "That's definitely going to make the list."

"List?" she tilted her chin forward to grant his lips better access to the sensitive skin below her earlobe. He nibbled; she shifted her bottom in the cradle of his lap; he sighed.

"Mmmm. My favourite ways to make love to Amanda list." She could tell by his tone that he was grinning foolishly, and she did what was expected of her and tapped his forearm, chiding him.

"Leeeee, there is no list. You're making it up."

"Maybe. I'm not at liberty to say. But if such a list did, in fact, exist, this position would most definitely be on it." He was using his best spy-voice.

"You've given this some thought, I can see."

"Well … yes. It helps pass the time when we can't be together, like these past few weeks."

"So that's what you were daydreaming about when you should have been helping me catalogue those security checks the other day." she said humourously.

"Guilty as charged."

"So, what else is on this list that may or may not exist?" she inquired, her curiousity peaked. She wanted to know what pleased him, what he found the most arousing, but anytime she'd found the courage to ask, he'd simply responded "you", and left it at that. Flattering, but not particularly enlightening.

"Oh, so many things. Sex in the shower. Sex on my desk in the Q bureau. Sex in the great outdoors. Something involving a pack of cinnamon hearts and an ice cube …" his voice drifted off, distracted.

"But Lee, we've never done any of those things!" she twisted to look over her shoulder at him, catching his playful expression.

"Maybe not yet, but I've got a very vivid imagination, Amanda."

She was quiet for a time, and he picked up some faint signal of worry emitting from her skin.

"I'm kidding about the cinnamon hearts and the ice cube. Or … I'm kidding if you want me to be kidding. You know … What's the matter, Amanda?"

He felt her ribs expand as she prepared to speak, stopped, shook her head, drew a deep breath again. By the time she said something, he was convinced she wasn't planning on answering.

"Lee, do you think we're sexually compatible?" she blurted out.

The resounding silence from behind caused her stomach to roil, and she cursed her tendency to say whatever she was thinking. But it was out there now, so she might as well see it through to its logical conclusion. Or at least try.

"What I mean is, I'm not sure I'm … I always figured you saw me as …. oh hell." she let out a frustrated sigh, searching her thoughts for a feasible distraction other than the obvious choice when they were lying naked, still tangled together like hands knit in prayer.

For his part, Lee was gobsmacked. He knew she couldn't be talking about her ability to please or excite him. Not when the very tangible evidence to the contrary was nestled quite comfortably in the vee of her thighs, and he still got slightly lightheaded if she so much as touched him in something other than a purely professional way. She knew that, didn't she? It was so painfully obvious to him, so he was certain the whole world was aware of the potent cocktail of love and lust he drank in her presence. And despite his natural tendency to do rather than say, he thought he'd been making a fair effort of vocalizing his appreciation for her in bed. So where was this new bout of the sexual yips coming from?

Unfortunately, he'd left his Amanda-seeing crystal ball in his other pants, so he was going to have to coax it out of her. Fortunately, he was a world class coaxer.

The first step was to see her eyes. Even when her mouth was working at cross-purposes, he prided himself on being able to read Amanda through her eyes. He pulled gently on her shoulder, encouraging her to roll over and face him. She tucked her head underneath his jaw, and he began to rub random patterns along her back.

"Please tell me you aren't saying that you doubt how much I want you." he finally asked, and was relieved to feel the shaking of her head.

"Is it because I mentioned my fantasies about making love to you in different ways?" A brief nod this time.

"I'd never coerce you into doing anything you weren't comfortable with, Amanda."

"But that's what you'd want. What you fantasize about." she whispered to his chest.

"Sure. Sometimes. But it's not like I'm going to lose interest if you tell me that my hopes of having you on the hood of my car aren't going to be realized."

He was hoping for a laugh, or better yet, acknowledgement that she shared his sports car fetish, but she was quiet again, and he decided to let her come around in her own time. Which eventually she did, in her own way.

"Lee, do you remember the first meal you made for me?"

"Uh, sure. I cooked us Japanese stir fry when I was hiding out at your place, pretending to be dead. Why?"

"I don't know how to make Japanese stir fry. Haven't the foggiest idea where to even buy squid."

"Riiiiight …" he was at a loss as to where she was going.

"I guess what I'm trying to say is that your tastes run to the exotic, and I've always been a meat and potatoes kind of girl."

Ah-ha. The analogy made sense now. Time to ease her fears.

"But you enjoyed the stir fry, as I remember."

"Yes."

"And if I told you how to make it, showed you where to buy squid and inoki mushrooms, you could make it yourself. If you wanted to have it again, that is."

"I suppose."

"Amanda, more often than not, if I was hungry before, I'd get takeout. Italian from Giorgio's one night. Sushi from Inawa another. And that was fine, but there was no single restaurant that had everything I wanted. So I amassed quite a stock of … take-out menus." She was looking at him now, a knowing look in her eyes, and he grinned abashedly, then continued, knowing she was following his thinly veiled point.

"But what I really craved was a home-cooked meal, and someone to share it with. Now, if I'm in the mood for something exotic, we can try to make it together. And if it turns out either one of us doesn't find it to our taste, that's alright, because there are thousands of other recipes out there for us to try. I don't have to find another restaurant; I just need to try a different dish. Do you understand what I'm saying?"

Oddly enough, she did. Perfectly. And by either talent or blind luck, he'd managed to say exactly the right thing. She felt the now-familiar sensation of her heart spilling over with love for him, and started running her fingers through his hair from temple to nape, tracing the outer edge of his ear en route. He closed his eyes in silent appreciation, and she placed warm kisses on the papery skin of his eyelids, using her lips to follow the topology of his striking features downwards until they met his in soft recognition. She knew she would never tire of kissing him. If sex was analogous to food, then his kisses were even more elemental, like air, and she demanded her fill.

He held still under her ministrations for as long as he could stand to, his hands pulling her tight against him where she could feel his arousal re-building. Patience finally exhausted, he rolled over top of her and explored her upper body with questing fingertips and an agile tongue. Their hips thrust lazily together, first randomly, then in syncopation, and eventually in a slow prelude to the act of sex itself. At the zenith of each movement their bodies froze for a beat, trying to wring out each drop of pleasure before subsiding to build again.

His gruff voice rose up from where he was licking her suprasternal notch, tasting the sweat of their previous exertions. "Do you feel that, Amanda? Feel how well our bodies understand each other? I can assure you, we are perfectly sexually compatible."

In further evidence to his claim, he knew exactly when she was ready for him. Could read the precise moment when tease became torture in the timbre of her moans and the entreaties of her hands. Reaching between them, he guided their bodies together at the same time he returned to her mouth, swallowing his name and replacing it with his tongue.

He loved the second round of lovemaking. Enough of the sharp edges of his need had been smoothed away that he was able to concentrate on what Amanda's body was asking for, and he was much more likely to accommodate her without the threat of premature ejaculation hanging over his head. Growing older had to have some benefits in the sack, after all.

Tonight, she wanted closeness. Tight, belly-rubbing, undulating, barely-pulling-out-before-he-dove-back-in closeness. Her arms were knotted around his shoulders and her legs had started wrapped around his thighs and were creeping higher, seeking the place that would create just the right angle to maximize the friction she needed to come. He knew she'd found it when she pressed her crown into the pillow and locked her ankles over his tailbone.

"Oh, right there. Right there, Lee. God. Keep going, just like that. I'm … I'm … I'm …"

Yes, you are, he thought proudly, feeling her muscles rippling along his length. He tried to steady his rhythm to the beat of her pants, drawing every last possible moment of pleasure out for her. Eventually, she subsided, and he had no problem reading the question in her eyes. He understood what she was offering, but he still had a point he needed to make. He'd always been fond of meat and potatoes.

One at a time, he massaged her hip flexors as he encouraged her to lower her feet to the mattress. He bent his head to her neck as he started to rebuild his pace, her hips still rising to meet him. This was Amanda, whose body was accepting him so openly. Amanda, whose pleasure was evident in her glowing eyes and wet acceptance. The reality of her was more potent than any fantasy he'd ever had, and he could feel his focus narrowing, anticipating the sudden rush of satisfaction that was cresting and waning just outside his reach. It was right there, and it was going to pull him inside out like a rubber tube. Right there, and all he needed was to look into her eyes. Right there, and there it was …


End file.
